At least once or twice every year someone comes out with a newer, cooler, easier, prettier technology to purportedly give offices and agents a leg up on the competition. As Lone Wolf enters into its 28th year of developing software for the real estate infrastructure, we have seen this over and over again. Most of the time the sales pitch for the new shiny penny is so good that you have no idea what you are buying or what advantage it will give you, just that it is really cool! And often overlooked are the questions such as “How will it fit in with our operations?”, “How will my staff be trained?”, “Will there be more work for staff?” and “Is this shiny penny company going to be around for the long haul?”
The biggest challenge is that brokers, agents and staff feel that they have to jump into the first thing that looks good regardless of the consequences to time and money spent. It can be hard to stay competitive if the competing office down the street has a coffeemaker that brews your coffee by sensing that your car has pulled into the parking lot (Hey, not a bad idea!). The challenge is the new shiny coffeemaker doesn’t use the same coffee, filters, and requires special cleaning separately from other coffeemakers in the office. In the end though, the expensive coffeemaker costs too much money and brews coffee every time any car drives by the office. Then, agents become upset because they can’t just make a simple cup of coffee without viewing a 30 minute online tutorial. Sound familiar?
It’s hard to distinguish shiny pennies from technologies that your brokerage actually needs. Making the wrong investment can waste your time and money. Ignoring new technologies can leave you irrelevant as your agents and customers choose your more innovative competitor. Feel a little blinded by all the shiny pennies out there?
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